Dcn. Tom McClelland's Homily:
        4th Sunday of Easter, April 29, 2007

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is the Lamb of God.  Does it surprise you that he can be both shepherd and lamb?  And why all these words about sheep and shepherds and lambs and flocks, anyway?  Are we supposed to be sheep?  I'll bet that not one of us woke up this morning, folded our hands, and immediately asked God, "Lord, make me a sheep today."  More likely, we asked God to heal a sick relative or neighbor and then to give us strength to win the battles of the day and to achieve success at whatever endeavor we happen to be in at the moment.  After all, isn't each one of us master of our own destiny, in charge of our own lives, and provider of everything we need?  We're Americans!  We don't need a shepherd, do we?  If we can't get what we want by calling on our cell phone and using our credit card, we just don't need it!  That's how independent we are!  So what is it that we should understand about a shepherd and his sheep?

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He says that his sheep hear his voice and follow him.  The two things we are talking about here, really, are relationship and attitude.  How do we relate to Jesus in every moment of every day?  And what is our attitude towards him?

The shepherd and sheep thing of course is an analogy.  It is a tool to give us the visual imagery of how we are to relate to Jesus, our Lord.  We all know how important a visual understanding can be.  We say, "A picture is worth a thousand words."  For example, take a full minute some time to carefully study a road map of Michigan — try to take in everything you see — and then try to guess how many pages of written text it would take to convey exactly the same amount of information as your eye has easily picked off the map.  Did you know, for instance, that you can even find the road to Hell on a Michigan map!  (Hell is just a little ways northwest of Ann Arbor.)  Our picturing Jesus in our minds as a shepherd standing here in the midst of us, and all of us as a flock of sheep, is exactly the same thing — the analogy conveys a ton of information, just like the map does, if you understand how shepherds and sheep live and work together.  The gospel message is clear, that we should be like sheep in our relationship to Christ, the Good Shepherd.

In biblical times, the nitty-gritty relationship of shepherd and sheep was much more meaningful to those people than it is to you and I today, and consequently the analogy was even stronger for them.  People in Jesus' time and culture came in frequent contact with sheep and with herdsmen, perhaps even daily.  Whereas, when was the last time you talked to a shepherd?  Or when did you last pasture a sheep?  The people of Jesus' time, for example, knew very well that a sheepfold was a pen or a corral-sort of enclosure, often made with stone walls, into which the shepherd would herd the sheep together for the night.  There was only one opening in the stone wall, about 5–6 feet wide, so there was only one way in or out for the sheep.  The shepherd would lay down at night with his body across the opening so that no sheep could try to get out without waking him, and no wolves could get in without stepping over him.

Farm animals in general, sheep and goats and cattle, were much more a part of people's lives in Jesus' day than they are in our lives.  My guess is that very few of you ever raised a lamb or a kid goat.  In the current day, most of us are much more familiar with dogs, cats, parakeets, gerbils, and even pet snakes than we are with livestock.  The closest thing I can think of to an animal's knowing its master's voice is when your dog is out of the house, across the street with your neighbor's dogs, and you holler, "Bone."  It will be your dog's ears that perk up, because he recognizes your voice saying his favorite word.  Now whether or not he will come back to you is another matter, but if a shepherd calls to his sheep and then begins to walk out and away from the sheepfold, all of the sheep of his flock will recognize his voice and will follow, because the shepherd leads them to water, and the shepherd leads them to green pasture.  They trust their shepherd.

One of the features in this analogy of shepherds and sheep is to recognize that it is a constant, fulltime relationship.  24/7 the shepherd is with his sheep.  He is constantly the caretaker, the protector, and the one who pastures his flock.  If one sheep strays, the shepherd rounds him up.  If a sheep is wounded, he binds the wound.  When lambs are born, the shepherd is up all night to assist the ewes.  If you grew up on a family farm, you also know that most of the cows and sheep and goats and pigs on your parents' farm had names.  The naming of an animal says a lot about the fact that you have a special relationship with that animal.  And shepherds often named their sheep.  You can be sure that Jesus knows your name!  Morning and night on a family farm, on everyday of the week, the farmer and his family are involved in feeding and watering the animals.  And when they are not feeding and watering, they are planting or harvesting or repairing fences and doing other chores to care for the animals.  In Jesus' day, the shepherds lived with their sheep, night and day — you can't imagine a relationship that is more fulltime than that!  Even our human families today don't spend that much time together.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He wants us to be his sheep.  He wants to have the identical, fulltime relationship with us that a shepherd has with his sheep.  He wants us to depend upon him, listen to him, stay with him, and follow him.  And this is where our attitude comes in.  Christ promised that he would give his sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish.  He said, "No one can take them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father's hand."  With a promise like that, how can anyone not want to be a sheep in Christ's flock?  Yet there are many people who hang way out on the edge of the flock, and some have simply wandered away.  They don't hear the shepherd's voice.  They don't have the protection of the sheepfold and the shepherd at night.  We know from the parable of the lost sheep that our Shepherd is willing to leave the 99 behind and go out to look for the lost sheep, and there is great rejoicing when that one is found — but if our attitude is right we will remain a part of the flock and not get lost.

How would you describe the attitude of a good sheep?  Do you know any good sheep?  Here's my short list of adjectives that would describe a good sheep.

1.    Attentive.  When the shepherd and the flock start to move, pay attention.  Don't just sit there wondering what happened.

2.    Cooperative.  Go in the direction taken by the shepherd.  Don't head off in some other direction.

3.    Loyal.  Stick with the one shepherd.  For Christians, this should be fairly easy, for there is no other shepherd as good as ours.  But we know that some people get on the wrong bus and end up following other leaders on roads to nowhere.

4.    Obedient.  Do what the shepherd tells you.  Don't quibble.  There is so much more peace in doing what the shepherd says is right, because you don't have to constantly try to figure it out for yourself.

5.    Humble.  Let the several sheep ahead of you who get to the water first finish drinking, then take your turn.  Don't try to wiggle in ahead of them.

6.    Submissive.  Submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life.  When the shepherd leads you to the shearers, stand submissively to be shorn. 

Think about your own relationship and your attitude toward Christ and the Church.  Do you rebel against it, or do you bask in the care of the Good Shepherd?  Not everyone is one of Christ's sheep.  In the gospel verse immediately ahead of today's reading, Jesus says to the Jews who challenge him: " You do not believe, because you are not among my sheep."

Pray that you may be a sheep in Christ's fold.  Pray that your relationship with Jesus will be one where he is your shepherd and you are his attentive, cooperative, loyal, obedient, humble, and submissive sheep.  Remember: the perfect model of how we are to be a sheep is Christ himself — for he himself is the Lamb of God.  Jesus is the Lamb.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Can you say, "Baa?"